


Initiation to the Knights Of Camelot (Featuring falling in love with the king's manservant)

by SerlinaBlack



Series: Unrelated Merlin stuff [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Court Sorcerer Merlin (Merlin), Everyone Loves Merlin (Merlin), Fluff, Jealous Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Lancelot is the rule abiding one, M/M, bless his heart he's dumb but not evil I swear, how can you not see they're banging???, my oc is dumb, the knights know too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22290157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerlinaBlack/pseuds/SerlinaBlack
Summary: Sir Garth is new to being a knight in the castle. He also doesn't know about the initiation.The knights and Morgana make bets.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Unrelated Merlin stuff [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922266
Comments: 15
Kudos: 1824
Collections: Emrys is a mess





	Initiation to the Knights Of Camelot (Featuring falling in love with the king's manservant)

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to point out this very obviously doesn't take place in canon. Morgana did leave and went crazy for a bit, but she came back. and is in love with Gwen. Arthur and Gwen never happened, but she is a lady now .

Sir Lancelot watches the new knight talking to a servant, pointing at Merlin and the king across the courtyard and crosses his arms. 

"We should tell them.” he informs his companions in that 'I don’t want to say it but it's the right thing to do' way 

"That is the king and the recruit’s personal matter. We shouldn’t go butting into it." Sir Leon replies primly, as though he wasn’t trying to hide his laughter a second ago. 

"Every time someone does it, it's like watching a fool poke a bear repeatedly. Why would you want to stop it?" Sir Gwaine replies jovially, ignoring the disapproving look he got. 

Sir Lancelot watched as Merlin grabbed the shield the king asked for and handed it. He watched as the new knight, Sir Garth quizzically looked at the manservant and the king and how the new knight's eyes followed Merlin out of the court. 

The noble knight sighed, another one then. 

****

Sir Garth has been granted the honour to join one of the king’s hunts. Not everyone gets to do this, only the closest and most promising of the knights can join. Since the king doesn't trust many, it is an honour amongst knights to even be invited. 

So..... Why was the king's manservant there with them? 

He paced his horse closer to Sir Gwaine, getting the man's attention, 

"Sir Gwaine?"

"Yes?" 

"Why is the king's manservant with us?" 

The other knight's mouth twitches and he turns to Sir Garth fully, something flickering in his eyes that he can't identify. 

"He tends to do that." the older knight says and doesn’t explain further. 

"But why? The hunt's barely for a day, and the food's already been packed what use would we have of him? And even if we do need a servant, why him?" 

He had noticed in the last few days in the castle, the king's manservant isn’t the most competent of the bunch. Not to mention at times downright disobedient. He talks back to the king, barely gets his job done and too free with his opinion about the king in front of the knights. 

Sir Gwaine looked at him cryptically again before he shook his head, "He's not there just to serve food I can tell you that.” 

The other knight fails to elaborate further and Garth hears Sir Elyan and Sir Percival snort. Garth wonders what that was about. 

In the end, the king's servant does end up serving the food and Garth gets more puzzled. They leave him to make a fire and to guard their bulky luggage. 

When they come back he was playing with a stray rabbit that seemed to be very intent on staying on his lap. A few squirrels chased each other around him and honest to goodness Robins singing over his head. He looked..... Ethereal.... Beautiful. 

What Sir Garth doesn’t notice is Sir Leon and Lancelot's sigh Sir Elyan's eye roll and Sir Gwaine and Percival's smirk. All of them had a common meaning of, 'Oh you poor fool'

*****

"Your name is Merlin right?" Sir Garth asks the manservant one day while said manservant was busy polishing the King’s shield.

“That’s me.” He grins and Sir Garth feels something flutter in his chest. He shakes himself out of whatever it was that possessed him, it would not do to have him moon over the boy.

“Why are you polishing the King’s shield now?” 'As opposed to the night when all the other servants get their work done for the day and get a head start' he thinks but doesn’t ask aloud. It’s understood either way if by the way he grins is any indication. 

“It pisses Arthur off if I start doing it right before he starts the training.” He says all impish charm and conspiratory smiles. 

“Sir Garth!” the king calls him ready to hand out his exercise of the day. He’s glaring at them for some reason Garth couldn’t fathom but he turns tail all the same. The king has a way of making him feel like a disobedient five year old, and Garth. For the life of him can’t help but do anything the other man tells him to. 

“Don’t let him get you down.” Merlin says as he jogs beside him with the shield, “I think he feels just like that when Gaius tells him off” Sir Garth sighs longingly when Merlin goes back.

Sir Gwaine grumbles and hands over a pouch to a smirking Sir Elyan behind the king’s back. Sir Garth wonders what that was about.

*****

Morgana, despite having to charm and disarm multiple nobles about the issues of magic, currently had nothing to do. And so, she was taking a stroll around the castle when she saw Arthur’s knights being their not stealthy knightly selves and shared a look with Gwen. They were attempting to hide behind a wall while simultaneously trying to get a look see as to what was going to happen beyond the walls. The result, was a comical jumble of red and metallic grey that obscured half the hallway. 

She cleared her throat. 

The knights jumped apart and looked like they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Of course, with the exception of Gwaine, but he has always been a lost cause anyway. 

“Er- Princess-” Lancelot started but didn’t finish at a loss for words. 

Morgana raised an eyebrow. 

“Want to watch the new knight fumble with his crush on Merlin while The princess fumes in the background?” Sir Gwaine offers as tactless as ever. The man has been the least problematic since she came back, he had the least reserve to talk to her, and even though everyone gradually came to accept her as the person she used to be, she was thankful to him and Gwen for giving her the first chance.

He also is extremely funny to watch as he makes a fool of himself without repent.

The knights shifted as her silence stretched on but in the end she grinned, 

“Of course.” She said and took to the other side of the door they were peering through. Gwen, the sweetheart that she is, reluctantly took a post beside her. 

Sir Garth walks towards the other door, a bouquet of forget me not clutched in his hand. 

He takes two steps before he turns around and walks back to the center of the room, the onlookers all move back behind their cover. 

He mutters something to himself then steels himself up, when Morgana and the rest peek in again he's walking back towards the other door again. 

"He's going to get his heart broken" Gwen whispers reprimanding. 

"Oh, come off it Gwen, who here hasn’t had their heart broken by Merlin’s oblivious arse?" Elyan whispers back defensively. 

There was a thoughtful pause as they all processed this, looked between themselves and nodded. Fair. 

"Even Arthur did didn’t he? Even though Merlin loves him?" Percival mutters thoughtfully still watching the new knight struggle with himself. 

"That's mostly because he's an idiot." Morgana dismissed. 

"Care for a wager when he's going to realize?" Gwaine changed the subject. 

"A year" Sir Percival says.

"Eh, I'll say less than that; six months?" says Elyan

"We shouldn’t be doing this to a fellow knight." Lancelot says exasperated. 

"I'll go ahead and say three." Sir Leon adds, ignoring the betrayed look he got from Lancelot. "The king is not exactly subtle."

"A month." Morgana announces, "That's when Arthur is planning to crown Court sorcerer." 

The knights look at her surprised, "I thought it would take longer, what with lord Cardarock" says Leon. 

"Well, Arthur lost his patience" Morgana smirks "The man insulted the king's incompetent manservant. The rest of the lords were just scared of Arthur imploding again. " 

The rest of them nodded slowly in understanding. 

*****

Reintroducing magic to Camelot was a controversy to say the least. Luckily, for the decision at least, people in the lower town, the farmers and such had no problem with it. They were, if anything downright enthusiastic about magic.

The nobles on the other hand weren’t as happy, but they relented to the king's orders.

Arthur’s speech was magnificent, the food was , par for the course with royal parties in abundance, when the time came for Arthur to announce the new Court sorcerer, Morgana was surprised how so many of the nobles didn’t realize that Arthur is in love with his Manservant. (she says manservant, but in her mind, Merlin has always been Arthur’s lover.)

She will, also always remember the face of everyone not in the know of Merlin’s magic when He knelt in front of Arthur. Lord Cardarock in particular looked like Merlin insulted his mother and then Arthur stabbed him. 

Afterwards, when the king took his leave from the festivities and the court sorcerer, as was his habit, followed him. Young children tuckered out and the wine flowed freely Morgana and Gwen joined the knights for a drink or five. 

It was when Sir Gwaine was at telling a particularly raunchy part of one of his and Sir Percival’s adventures did she notice Sir Garth looking lost and ashen. 

“Gentlemen, I believe I win on this account” she pointed out Sir Garth and reached her hand palms up. 

The knights grumbled and handed over her winnings bar Lancelot who didn’t bet. That prude.

Gwaine, being ever the sport, approached the new knight and thumped him on the back, bringing him to the knights table. 

“I’m fairly sure I’m not supposed to say what I saw. And even then why I saw it was also all kinds of bad-” he explained to Gwaine who must’ve asked him what he saw. 

“You saw my brother and the new Court sorcerer going at it like rabbits.” Morgana deadpans, handing the man a pint “Nothing new there I’m afraid. Despite how bloody possessive my brother gets all of us had walked in on them at one point or another.” 

He stared at her then the drink, then took the drink and chugged the entire thing at once.

“That’s the spirit! Welcome to being a knight of Camelot, we all had our hearts broken by Merlin at one point.” Gwaine thumped him in the back again. 

Sir Garth took a glance at the table and huffed out a laugh. Morgana grinned, They’d get along just fine.


End file.
